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Over the past few weeks I have been busy with my new business partner (Alek Gokiert) setting up Morphate – the only Salesforce Partner that is focussed solely on driving transformation in the Not for Profit sector across Australia and New Zealand.

You may ask why – well I think the sector deserves a Salesforce partner that is focussed on delivering the best of breed products for Not for Profits. Regardless of your size or complexity we have a range of products in our toolbox that will meet your needs.

At our official launch this week, during Salesforce at CeBit, it was fantastic to see and speak with so many #NFP’s that attended CeBit to understand what new technologies are available and how they can be used in their organisations.

In case you missed it here is the presentation that we presented at the Salesforce Theatre sessions during Salesforce at CeBit which showcased some of the products available to help drive transformation in Not for Profits.

All the above products are built on the Salesforce platform allowing you to leverage Salesforce and other apps from the appExchange across your entire organisation.

But what if you missed CeBit or wanted a deeper dive into those products? Well you’re in luck, over the coming weeks we will be delivering regular Webinars about the products that are available to you, detailing how you can be using these in your organisation.

To ensure you get the most from the webinars I have included a poll below for you to vote on which sessions you are interested in attending. Your votes will determine the order the Webinars will be presented. We will publish the agenda for the webinars in a new post so be sure to follow our blog to stay in touch.

Yep I know it’s a crazy title but it’s a hint that next week will be a full week of fun and cloudy type events.

On Wednesday I will be in Melbourne at the #Salesforce1Tour event. This will be a day highlighting the Salesforce1 platform and how companies and organisations are using Salesforce. For me the most exciting bit is the ‘Ask an Expert’ bar – this will be the first time that we will have a dedicated space in an Australian event staffed by the local Salesforce MVP’s (Steven Herod, Matt Lacey, Jason Lawrence and myself) and a great crew of volunteers from our various User Groups. Anybody can come up and ask us any question about Salesforce and challenge us to help solve your problems.

The other cool thing about the #Salesforce1Tour event is the breakout sessions. There is something for everyone from sessions such as 5 Emerging Digital Trends by Derek Laney, to Using Salesforce to Grow and Succeed by Tom Karemacher or The Power of the Connected Nonprofit by Andrew Hill.

I am sure it will an informative and interesting day and I hope to catch up with you at the event.

But wait… that’s not all. On Friday night in Sydney we will be holding a #CloudCrowd event focussing on the Internet of Things.

Who/What is the #CloudCrowd? Well it’s you if you’re reading this but basically it is a bunch of people who are interested in the cloud, who enjoy talking about and spreading the word about the cloud and are keen to stay ahead of the game.

The night will be a fun night featuring a panel including Mark Pesce, Matt Lacey, Reid Carlberg and hosted by Derek Laney. and we are expecting some great discussions from the floor about #IoT as well as the Social Media command centre which will be tracking all social activity on the night. Don’t forget to bring your party shoes as we have a band to help get the event pumping.. and there is plenty of food and drinks on offer as well.

The best bit – this is all FREE! So don’t hesitate jump into our #CloudCrowd Linkedin group for details on how you can grab your ticket now and also don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for all the latest news and details about our events.

So the week will be jam packed full of awesomeness and fun and I hope to catchup with you at either, or both, of the events this week.

This week I had the pleasure of attending #FIAConf2014, the Fundraising Institute Conference, in Melbourne. This was my first time that I have attended the conference and I found it an amazing experience. I’ve been to numerous conferences in my time and always take away something – this time the takeaway was a reminder about my personal goals and what drives me to do what I do.

During the conference I spent a lot of time talking to a people from a range of organisations – some small organisations and some very large. Their operational problems they are trying to resolve were all similar but the most interesting part was that their passion and drive was the same regardless of the size or purpose of the charity.

The highlight of the event was the Gala event and the awards. The one that touched me more than any other was the Volunteer of the Year – his story reminded me of the real values that we should uphold in our life and what we should keep front of mind every day of our life.

I’ve spent the majority of my working life working in or with Financial Services companies. I enjoyed my work but was never really satisfied with what I was doing. Over the past few years I have made a concerted effort to work with Not For Profit organisations.

I have walked away from the conference with a new sense of drive to focus on helping organisations become more effective through the use of great tools that allow them to focus on what they need to do rather than be tied up in operational ineffectiveness.

I’m already looking forward to #FIAConf2015 and I hope to see you there or talk beforehand if we can help you drive change in your organisation.

Recently I asked what you would like to read and this topic received the most votes for my next blog.

I enjoy working with Not for Profits (NFP) and the passion in the sector cannot be matched by any other that I have been involved with in my working life. I have previously blogged about how NFP’s are seen as the poor cousins to other sectors, they fight hard for their funds, focus on spending any available operational funds in the right places all whilst keeping their eye on the main game of delivering on their core vision. Implementing projects with limited resources and expertise is a challenge. So how do they manage to implement successful projects? Here are my tips for implementing successful projects.

Project Direction

You’ve decided to implement a project. From this moment there is a need to manage the scope of the project to ensure you stay on track and deliver the project. Ensure the scope is defined and the success criteria is agreed at the commencement of the project and all internal stakeholders sign off before you engage with any external parties.

Avoid scope creep by utilising the scope and success criteria throughout the project to ensure any request that is outside of the scope stays outside of scope.

Project Team

Establish a project team at the beginning of the project. Typically most projects will impact several areas of an organisation and it is important to ensure every area helps drive the project. Establish a regular project meeting with a set agenda and deliverables. Appoint a chairperson who also documents minutes and track deliverables to ensure the project stays on track until go-live.

Steering Committee

Once your project has got the greenlight and your scope has been defined one of the best ways to ensure things stay on track is to establish a Steering Committee. The Steering Committee will ensure that any issues that cannot be resolved by the project team are addressed and the project stays on track for Go Live. The Steering Committee should be a mixture of the senior staff, project team and vendor representatives. Ensure recurring meetings are set throughout the project, minutes are captured and published and communicated to the wider team.

Collaboration

Utilise a collaboration tool such as chatter with the project team and the wider organisation. This is more effective than email as everyone in the team can get involved in the discussion within the same forum. Any project collateral should be shared in the same medium which means everyone will always have the correct version of any documentation. The collaboration tool can also be rolled out to the wider organisation to help drive change management that occurs in each project.

Methodology

What is the right methodology for implementing projects. Some will argue Waterfall and others Agile, Lean, PRINCE2 or some other methodology is the right approach for every project. I prefer a blend of all types into what I classify as Nimble. Nimble is a mashup of the appropriate PM approach but focusses on delivering the right solution at the right time.

It may be appropriate to utilise a Waterfall approach if you are converting from one system to a new system and a “Big Bang” approach is required. But you can still utilise a phased approach with delivering a Go Live phase as soon as you can in the project providing as much functionality as you need to allow the organisation to operate from the new system.

Once you are live you should move to a phased approach where new iterations are delivered on a regular basis throughout the project. Ensuring these iterations are supported with the appropriate training and communications will mean that the project will be a success throughout the life of the project.

Expertise

It is important that you have the necessary expertise you can call on throughout the project and it is becoming more difficult for organisations to have the necessary expertise internally. If you don’t have the expertise internally it is important to identify this early and where needed supplement this with external resources.

Remember to “lean on” the Steering Committee to help address this as you need throughout the project.

I have found that with projects involving Salesforce, as a technology solution, you can utilise the power of the community. There are fantastic resources at Salesforce Communities and a specific community for Not For Profits called the Power of Us Hub. Ensure you check the communities out, become involved and also help “pay it forward” with others that can use your expertise.

Common Sense

Above all else ensure common sense is maintained throughout the project. We all know that projects never run to plan and decisions will need to be made during the project that can change the direction and/or delivery date of the project.

If you stay focussed on the success criteria throughout the project and weigh up the pros and cons of any change you will make the right decision ensuring the project will be a success.

Celebrate

Yes there should be a celebration when you go live but there are many points throughout any project that you should ensure are celebrated. It may be appropriate to set up a formal reward program if your project includes a large element of change management. Keep the team motivated throughout will help keep the project on target and a happy and productive project team.

Technology

The above tips have not focussed on any particular technology as the approach is not technology dependant. My only recommendation is that whatever technology you choose needs to continue to grow with your organisation and this should be achievable without large upgrades or re-implementations.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this blog interesting. Drop me a note and let me know what you thought.

I was about to create a new blog and I want to ensure my blog is topical, current and delivering something that interests you. So I thought I would throw this open to you to tell me what you would like to read about.

I will write the blog in the next few days so I would appreciate your feedback.

Don’t be shy – vote away and let me know what you think and thanks for taking the time to help drive the focus of the appiPete blog.

Scott Dorsey, the CEO of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, launched the keynote. One of the first comments Scott made was to reiterate a comment from the previous day “Get to the future first and welcome your customers as they arrive”. This is an interesting way to look at things as I believe we are on the cusp of seeing some amazing things happen as Marketing transforms with tools such as ExactTarget and Salesforce.

For as long as I can remember the view has always been that data is king and this is true to some degree. The problem is that with all the data there was a lack of tools that allowed one view to understand the data and how it should be used. That was true until now…

Today our customers have so many tools and devices at their fingertips. The marketer’s challenge is to ensure their reach extends to these tools in a meaningful way. As Scott mentioned there are 5.0 Billion smartphones being utilised globally and we carry our smartdevice 16 hours a day. Our Smart devices are the dashboard to our lives – any marketing activities must utilise a Mobile first focus or risk missing a significant amount of potential customers.

In the main keynote Marc Benioff introduced the concept of “The Internet of Customers”. Part of this concept is utilising devices to deliver information to the user. We are seeing connected devices being utilised in our daily life. I’ve lost count of the number of friends with Fitbit bands and the gamification, across social networks and smart devices, that these programs use to encourage competition and deliver results to the users.

This is all good but how can Marketing evolve to take advantage of these type of tools. Does it need to change? The reality is customers demand a personal experience and want and demand to feel special. They are clearly saying –

“Deliver me a personal experience in every single interaction. Know who I am when I walk into a shop, when I interact with you online, when I pass by your store.. Deliver content that makes sense to me and don’t give me content that I won’t be interested in”

How? You’ve got the data so the next step is utilising tools to analyse the data you have collected over time. You need to utilise tools to help build out campaigns that can use the data in meaningful interactions. Tools such as Pardot and ExactTarget.

Pardot is a strong B2B marketing tool that allows the marketing team to build out campaigns and track all online activity of customers (both potential and existing). Activity can be scored and progressive profiling utilised to maximise conversion rates. Pardot effectively delivers prospects to the sales team based on their activity, nurturing a customer to ensure the sales team effort is spent on those leads/customers that are have been “pre-qualified”. What I like about Pardot is that it is simple to use, setup, maintain and update flows which delivers the power of Pardot into the hands of the Marketing team.

For a B2C tool I don’t think you can go passed ExactTarget. This has now risen to the Number 1 tool in the space. Why? ExactTarget can use any conceivable data source which can be integrated into the ExactTarget Marketing cloud for all campaign activities. Ultimately the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud is not about email though as it also utilises Radian6 and BuddyMedia to complete the entire Marketing Cloud offering.

The Marketing Team start by building up a journey utilising a canvas that sits over their data and provides the ability to clearly buildout the campaign in real time. Specific content is developed and delivered to the consumer across many channels – such as Facebook, Twitter, Email and push messages etc. As soon as the customer interacts with the content the journey moves to the next stage.

A big win, in my view, is that the design and analytics dashboards are one and the same. This is a nice approach and simplifies the user experience.

The biggest avenue for marketing interactions is in the Social space. It is imperative, in the current world, that the Marketing team need real time analytics listening to real people talking about real products in real time. They must be able to collaborate with suppliers, customers and consumers via the same tools. ExactTarget Marketing Cloud utilise Radian6 to listen and BuddyMedia to publish in real time. The power is that these tools are all delivered in one solution – ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.

I will leave you with one last thought. Having the sexiest tools in place to drive your marketing activities is fantastic but the reality is content is still more important than anything else. You need content to ensure the right messages is delivered at the right time – you need the right tools to ensure the delivery can can be achieved effortlessly.

My main takeaway from this keynote is that you need the tools to allow you to build and deliver content across multiple platforms quickly and without engaging multiple teams. Speed to market increases effectiveness and increases the outcomes you can achieve. This can be achieved with the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.

My next blog will be about the Platform Keynote from Dreamforce. If you’re interested please subscribe or leave a comment.

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to San Francisco for my third Dreamforce experience. This journey was different as it was my first as a Salesforce MVP which meant I got to hang with the cooler kids (I’m not one of those just yet) and experience some of Dreamforce from a different perspective.

Arriving in town a few days early helped acclimatise to the San Francisco timezone and weather and try and get over the onset of jet lag. On Sunday registration opened and the flood of the 135,000 registrants with the familiar blue lanyards and Dreamforce badges could be seen around San Francisco.

The conference kicked off on Monday and I attended several sessions in the Foundation Zone. This is an area, that was set up in the Hilton Hotel, to cater specifically to the Not For Profit space. Having a specific space together with the Community Zone, which was next to the Foundation Zone, shows why devotees like myself support and enjoy working in the Salesforce space.

On Tuesday Dreamforce really kicked off with the main keynote. At the start of every main Dreamforce keynote the first section is dedicated to the Salesforce Foundation and how they are working in the community. Salesforce are the pioneers of the 1-1-1 model which has now been adopted by other large companies across the globe.

As you will see in the above video, view from 12.47 if you don’t want to watch it all, Marc Benioff announced that the main beneficiary of support from the Salesforce Foundation over the past twelve months were the People of Haiti following the devastating earthquake. In the following YouTube clip, as Marc interviewed Laurent Lamothe, Prime Minister of Haiti, and Petra Němcová, I can honestly say there were very few dry eyes in the Moscone Centre. Seeing how Salesforce, and donations from the Salesforce Foundation, was being utilised to help get Haiti back on it’s feet was amazing.

We then moved into the main keynote. As usual everyone in the room and those around the globe watching on the livestream were on the edge of our seat waiting to hear the announcement. And then it was announced – The Internet of Customers. Such a simple concept that clearly connects the Internet of Things and the end result being the Customer. How does Salesforce play in this space?

Salesforce1 is the new Customer platform connecting everything in new ways. Salesforce1 has been developed with a focus on mobile first linking how society has embraced smart devices as the mainstay tool to stay connected and their work life/activities.

Salesforce1 replaces the Touch product and is already in general availability. Further functionality will be coming In the next release allowing custom branding enabling app developers to get an app to market quicker than ever before. How? Well developers get “10 times more” APIs; partners get new tools to make their apps mobile; end-users get the all-new mobile apps; administrators get a new “Salesforce1 A” mobile admin app for provisioning (and freezing) end users; and customers get superior and connected experience across the Salesforce ecosystem including the acquired tools such as Heroku, ExactTarget, Buddy Media, and Radian6. Is it a game changer? Well that phrase has been overused – it is definitely a revolution on how mobile apps are built and delivered!

Be prepared to be consumed by the phrase “Internet of Customers” which will replace Cloud as the standard phrase but it truly describes where we are heading with technology.

As Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, stated during the keynote “For everyone in technology, is this not the most exciting time to be in technology? I wholeheartedly agree!

My next blog will focus on the Marketing Cloud Keynote. If you’re interested please subscribe or leave a comment.